The Playboys Of Gotham
by Madame Cyanure
Summary: 3:00 AM in the richest and most corrupt city in the USA. People expect many things from the Wayne Family celebrities, but do they live up to expectations? Is this who they truly are? BatFamily fic; part character piece, part mystery story. Some non-explicit M-rated hints, but mainly T-rated. xx
1. Part One: Business

**The Playboys of Gotham**

**Just a little fic inspired by a line from** _Batman & Robin: Batman Reborn. _**Warnings of mild M-rated content but it is mostly borderline T-rated, and please review after reading! As always, the characters belong to DC comics. :) MC. xx**

" '_Bruce has a son? Oh, he's adorable!' 'Never mind that. How do I get Richie Grayson to look my way?' "_

_**Part One: Business (Bruce Wayne)**_

Few would expect to find Gotham's top billionaire, playboy and philanthropist occupying a hard leather seat in a dank, dark cave at three o'clock in the morning, although few Gothamites knew him well enough to assume that he would be there.

There were a lot of assumptions made in this city, really. For example, the fact that a rich man both hosted and attended countless socials, soirees and business events with other members of the nouveau-rich class automatically endowed him with notable sexual prowess. Idle rumours were all that fuelled this reputation whilst he burrowed down below, with computers that told him what was happening that instant in a city more corrupt than Hell itself. There was a sweet irony in all those gold-diggers claiming to have slept with someone whose absence at his own party was barely noticeable. Those kinds of relationships weren't important to the mission. Not unless they held a tactical advantage, and then the girls were usually politely directed towards Dick.

Another assumption that worked in his favour was that he was really, _really_, bad at polo. It made it easier to explain the scars on the rare occasion that he did have sex with someone. Charitable events were long associated with his family and the odd polo tournament never went amiss. The likes of Bane, and Joker, and Dent didn't care how the man behind the mask concealed his exploits; not when it was so easy to spill his blood for their twisted cause. He didn't care much either, so he allowed the admittedly limited imaginations of the other socialites to run wild.

A soft ping indicated that the scans of the corpse occupying the medical table were complete. After a brief analysis, he would know how to approach tonight's mission. Every detail, every weakness, every advantage would be his for the taking when the Batman put the world to rights. There would always be scum crawling out of the underworld of this city, all players with varying degrees of conniving importance. The warlords and the madmen were really no different to the thieves and murderers on the street, although knowing the individual was the key to successful tactics. Even dead, a man could hold secrets to a world that most elites were too scared to dream of. Hence haunting a darkened metallic cave at 03:00 AM would always be preferable to lurking around the hors d'oeuvres and champagne upstairs.

A final, cruel assumption was that his occasionally erratic behaviour was some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. Having studied various types of mental disorder when predicting the next move of Arkham's most frequent guests, he couldn't quite agree with that sentiment. On the other hand, he also couldn't fully deny it. He could achieve far more for Gotham as Batman than as the billionaire Wayne, and public appearances in the rich-boy mask were just a large inconvenience to his cause. He would never stop trying to avenge his parents, with their portraits and photographs reminding him each waking moment of what he was put on this earth to do. And even if their killer was ever brought to justice there was always more filth in Gotham's rotten underbelly that needed the fear of The Batman put into them. Once the cowl went on, nothing else mattered.

The party continued to hum in the Manor above, oblivious to the absence of its host, and he would let them believe what they wanted to believe. The guests wouldn't even feel the blast from the car's rocket boosters, and only by chance would they catch a glimpse of tonight's justice on the news. There was always more important work to be done than fuelling gossip.


	2. Part Two: Mixed With Pleasure!

_**Part Two: …Mixed With Pleasure (Richard Grayson)**_

Lying in sticky, post-sex bliss, tangled up in the satin sheets of a downtown apartment bed and covered in a happy mixture of bodily fluids (some his, some belonging to two girls slumbering on either side of him); this really was a time for perspective. It had been one of those rare occasions where he had allowed himself to get well and truly drunk, possibly disgracing the Wayne Family name in the process. It wasn't that he was unhappy about what had just happened (the groupies who had snared him were passably pretty), but there was a feeling of clarity looming in the dark which wouldn't go away when the mask went on. So, in the halfway house between mildly inebriated and sober, it was quiet time for Mr Grayson.

He didn't really consider himself to be a man-whore, because he cared about people too much. They weren't objects to be discarded in the same way that he would remove a condom, but he had always been trained to keep his eye on the ball, never letting people get too close. Just keep it within the Family. This had always been at odds with the values his parents had instilled in him from birth. To love was to be happy, and wearing your emotions like a glove was not a crime. And so he found himself in his present situation; sated for the time being, but never truly able to settle down.

Of course it didn't help that he was the adopted son of Gotham's (apparently) womaniser de jour. An inability to maintain a stable relationship was part of the job description, with the tabloids jeering their 'like father, like ward' routine every time he read his name in the news. This was of course an utter steaming pile of dung, but his glaringly obvious commitment issues were unnerving. He could pass it off as the costume's fault; his far too regular outings as Robin, as Nightwing, as Batman, and as Nightwing again being too strenuous and erratic to allow him a normal life. But that was a poor excuse, as his countless masked lovers put paid to that theory. Kory, Babs, Cheyenne, Huntress, Zatanna. Well maybe not as countless as his inner ego would like, but a fair few, none of which were mere notches on a bedpost. He was still good friends with all of them, although each in turn had offered him the same excuse when they broke up with him; 'I'm ready for you, but you're not ready for me', like some sick twist on the old movie cliché. Oh yes, Superman had dubbed him the older brother and lynchpin of the hero community for maintaining these more-than-friendships, except that this really just meant that he was crap at the whole 'going steady' thing. An accidental womaniser, as it was.

He ventured a glance at the clock and its red numbers glared accusingly back at him, stinging his eyes. _03:00 AM_. Regardless of his company, it was time to go. He had a couple of leads that needed to be followed up that night, and couldn't risk falling behind when there was so much at stake. Slowly, he un-sandwiched himself from between the arms of Clarissa and Whatshername and hauled himself to a sitting position. As the room decided to spiral, he instantly regretted the move; he remembered why he never drank this much, or maybe he just didn't drink often enough. He needed to sharpen up before moving out into the city, so disentangled himself completely. One of the girls moaned quietly in her sleep at the loss of contact;

'_Richie…'_

He gave her a reassuring hug before heading out to the kitchen to forage for paracetamol and a glass of water, automatically chiding his conscience for thinking that leaving them was heartless. What he was doing as Nightwing was far from heartless on the grander scale of things, and the girls would probably expect this of him anyway. Favouring a handful of cereal over the sensible pre-prepared meals that Alfred expected him to eat, he downed the drugs and fished out one of his suits from a secret compartment in the drawer. Heading to the shower to clean himself up whilst dragging the costume unsteadily behind him, he still couldn't shake that dark little notion that his love life was living up to the wrong expectations.

Psychologists would probably argue that how he lived in the public eye was some sort of delayed backlash to what happened before Bruce Wayne took him in. Not just his parents being murdered, but the Bohemian lifestyle associated with growing up in the circus. This screamed nothing but bullshit to him as he allowed the cool water to run down his slender and scarred torso. Sure, he would never forget his parents and 'Robin' was a direct reaction to their deaths, but he would never allow that to influence much of his life, not in the way Bruce did. And spending most of his formative years following the moving limelight was supposed to broaden his horizons, not give him commitment issues which poisoned any chance of a lasting relationship. Some might say that he was in denial, but he couldn't blame the dead for his love life. Things were his own fault somehow, but he wasn't quite sure why. Not that it mattered too much at the moment; at least the room had finally stopped spinning.

Zipping up his body armour, he crept back into the bedroom in search of a stray gauntlet; thrown under the bed, tantalisingly close to being discovered by a pale wrist drooping off the duvet, as a result of the last time he forgot to sleep. Careful not to wake the girls, he slide underneath the bedframe with practised stealth and retrieved it along with his last unbroken pair of eskrima. The mask, as always, was the last to go on. Regardless of the fact that he was still feeling queasy, he had a job to do. Maybe he could puke up on The Penguin?

He kissed each girl tenderly on the lips and smiled as they squirmed happily in the dark. A note on the fridge door later (saying that he would call them, though he never would) and he was swinging out of the window into the bright lights and dark shadows of Gotham City. Unlike Batman, he never left his personal life behind him. Passion would have to do for now, but it didn't stop him from wanting love.

**So, opinions? There is a third chapter waiting in the wings, but it is entirely dependant on reviews, so give me some incentive! :D MC. xx**


	3. Part Three: All Work, No Play

**_Part Three: All Work, No Play (Timothy Drake)_**

It had started out as an experiment, to pass the time. A way to hone his detective skills to an even finer art. The conditions would have to be ideal of course – away from the Manor, with its cameras prying into every corner, but comfortable enough to relax. It felt awkward, being watched; kind of ironic really. A room at one of the safe-houses, with soundproofing and triple combination locks. This was where he could tend to all of his pleasures.

He licked his dry lips as his eyes silently caressed the footage on the silver screen. Lying on a plump duvet with exclusive access to an unrestricted laptop, Tim really couldn't think of a better way to pass the time. Parties weren't his scene; he'd attend photo-calls for Bruce and listen keenly at business meetings with Lucius, but a line had to be drawn somewhere. There were times where he just wanted to indulge in his own silent happiness. Of course, the definition of "happiness" was relative to the individual; most teenaged boys would use an unblocked computer for more sordid purposes. Not Tim. He used to be that kid, before his dad died; he had even been caught in the act. Not now though. He couldn't afford to slacken the pace, not with Talia's boy back and swearing allegiance to Bruce. Tim was working on borrowed time and he knew it.

Tim switched to a live video feed of Park Row, now forever stamped as Crime Alley. There was nothing but a few stray cats and drug addicts stumbling to find their next hit. The city was eerily quiet. Something big, something explosive, was about to erupt Downtown. He knew what it was, of course; they all did. And they would all try their utmost to stop it in their distinctive, non-meta family way. Some of them might even die; death was common in Gotham if you wore a cape. He would lose himself in the rush, and he wouldn't even care. At least until the adrenaline stopped and his personal problems would resurface. Dying would be the easy way out.

He loved being Robin; it was one of the few things that he lived for. It had started out as a game, a trophy for working out who Batman and the original really were, and then progressed to co-dependency; he and Bruce had needed each other. But now, who knew? One girlfriend was dead and the other wouldn't take the time to notice him. Bruce had other people to attend to and Dick was busy playing leader. He had always known that he was a stop-gap; a replacement to placate a grieving Batman. Some might say that Tim was hiding behind the mask. Clinging to it, even. At this moment in time, he would have to agree with them; he wasn't currently working in full uniform, just civvies and a mask.

He was scared, and he hated to admit it. Scared of rejection; scared of being without purpose. Scared of being just, well, _Tim_. At least if he was Robin he still had something to lose, something to keep him focused. Timothy Drake was a nobody. If Robin didn't exist, then he wouldn't have met Steph. Cassie was such a Super-fangirl that she wouldn't even give "Timothy" the time of day, let alone kiss him. Tim knew he was talented in many ways – it was why he was here in the first place – but he didn't think he could live a life without the cape anymore. And the kid had started staring at him like a shark, waiting for him to mess up. He reserved the right to be scared.

He could always strike out on his own, form his own identity, but who was he kidding. There was the fear that Cassie would leave him if he surrendered the title, and the world didn't need another Nightwing or, even worse, another Red Hood. Jason Todd was back, murderous, and royally peeved that he had been replaced; Tim had already ran into him a couple of times and the outcome hadn't been pretty on either occasion. Lying in an alley, passed out in a pool of his own blood, waiting until one of the others found him was by far the worst way to spend an evening, particularly when the beating was ill-deserved. And yet still, from what he'd heard, his predecessors – whether psychopathic or inherently cocky – could at least talk to girls. He tapped a sequence of keys and sixteen of Gotham's security cameras strategically repositioned themselves. He was too quiet to talk to anyone new, and too shy to tell Cassie how he really felt. He was holed up in an otherwise empty building; it didn't take a detective to work out why. Bruce was hosting a gala tonight, protecting Gotham's major players until their plan could be set in motion. Both Tim and Batman knew that he could do what needed to be done from here, but his absence from the gathering would be a sore point. Alfred would be so disappointed.

In short, whilst the others oozed confidence and had the cream of the city begging for their love, Tim felt like a bit of a lost cause. As he clicked the final pieces into place, he checked the art deco clock which hung on the wall. 03_:30 AM._ Shoot; he was late! That would earn him at least a pointed glare. Tim thanked God that Bruce didn't allow the kid out on patrol. With the way he was feeling tonight, he didn't think he could ignore another jibe. He quickly located the carefully folded uniform at the end of the bed and changed into it, making sure that every detail was in place. He had enough projectiles to last him a couple of hours, and there would be additional ammo in the Batmobile. He stood tall as his collapsible bo-staff rapidly expanded. Whatever his personal daemons, he would not screw up tonight. Not when the city depended on him.

As Tim scampered down the fire escape, a black shadow darted across the laptop monitor. Crime Alley's most famous street lamp went out with a "pop".

**So that's my take on Tim. A little bit OOC I know, but it always seems to me like he plays his cards pretty close to his chest. Reviews are adored. :) **


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